Love You More_ A Novel - Lisa Gardner [72]
“She staged it,” Phil muttered. “Made it look like her husband had done something to Sophie. Then she and Brian fought and she killed him in self-defense.”
D.D. nodded; Bobby, too.
“What about the facial injuries, though?” Neil spoke up from the back. “No way she made it through Saturday night patrol with a concussion and fractured face. She couldn’t stand yesterday, let alone operate a motor vehicle.”
“Good point,” D.D. concurred. She moved in front of the whiteboard, where she’d written: Timeline. Now, she added one bullet—Tessa Leoni Injuries: Sunday Morning. “Wounds gotta be fresh. Can a doctor verify that?” she asked Neil, a former EMT and their resident medical expert.
“Tough with contusions,” Neil answered. “Everyone heals at a different rate. But I’m gonna guess the severity of the injuries dictates they happened sooner versus later. She wouldn’t have been terribly functional after taking such massive blows to the head.”
“Who beat her up?” another officer asked.
“Accomplice,” Phil muttered up front.
D.D. nodded. “In addition to revamping our timeline, this new information also means we need to reconsider the scope of the case. If Brian Darby didn’t beat his wife, who did, and why?”
“Lover,” Bobby said quietly. “Most logical explanation. Why did Tessa Leoni kill her husband and daughter? Because she didn’t want to be with them anymore. Why didn’t she want to be with them anymore? Because she had met someone new.”
“Hear anything through the grapevine?” D.D. asked him. “Rumors from the barracks, that sort of thing.”
Bobby shook his head. “Not that plugged in, though. I’m a detective, not a trooper. We’ll need to interview the LT.”
“First thing this afternoon,” D.D. assured him.
“Gotta say,” Phil spoke up, “this theory fits better with what Darby’s boss, Scott Hale, reported. I talked to him at eleven, and he swore up and down that Darby didn’t have a violent bone in his body. A tanker crew is pretty tight. You see people sleep deprived, homesick, and stressed out, while maintaining a twenty-four/seven work schedule. As an engineer, Darby got to deal with all the technical crises, and apparently big things go wrong on big ships—water in the fuel, fried electrical systems, glitches in the control software. Still, Hale never saw Darby lose his composure. In fact, the bigger the problem, the more jazzed Darby was about finding a solution. Hale certainly doesn’t believe a guy like that goes home and beats up his wife.”
“Darby was a model employee,” D.D. said.
“Darby was everyone’s favorite engineer. And apparently, quite good at Guitar Hero—they have a rec room on board.”
D.D. sighed, crossed her arms over her chest. She glanced over at Bobby, not quite meeting his eye, but looking in his general direction. “What’d you learn at the gym?” she asked.
“Brian had spent the past nine months following a vigorous exercise regimen designed to bulk up. Personal trainer swore he wasn’t doing steroids, just putting in blood, sweat, and tears. She only heard him say good things about his wife, but thought that having a state trooper for a spouse was tough on the guy. Oh, and in the past three weeks, since returning home from his last tour, Darby was definitely in a mood, but not willing to talk about it.”
“What do you mean by ‘in a mood’?”
“Personal trainer said he seemed darker, temperamental. She’d asked a couple of times, guessing trouble on the home front, but he wouldn’t comment. For what it’s worth, that makes him something of a novelty. Apparently, most clients pour out their souls while working out. Go to a gym, enter a confessional.”
D.D. perked up. “So something was on his mind, but Darby wasn’t talking about it.”
“Maybe he discovered his wife was having an affair,” Neil commented from the back. “You said when he returned, meaning, he’d just left his wife all alone for sixty days.…”
“In addition to the rec room on the ship,” Phil spoke up, “there’s a computer room for the crew.